Lady Heather's Domain: My life in a Nutshell

Day and Night have become equal for a moment.  It is the time of the 2nd harvest. For me this year, the harvest has been bitter sweet.  My seeds I am harvesting and preparing for the feast are 1.  To continue to support my daughter in every way I could to help her healing.  2.  To support my husband during his lower surgeries.  3.  To continue towards becoming a therapist working with families struggling with RAD. 1.  My daughter is now out of state in a special placement that will hopefully allow her to heal.  When I planted those seeds of intent, my daughter was an hour a way and doing well and making progress in the placement she was at.  She was able to come home and visit.  I still had full custody of her.  But the progress was limited and so was her healing and eventually my daughter showed us she needed something more intense to help her heal.  I had no idea that the Goddess's path would lead me through cour...

Bessel van Der Kolk, MD is an amazing speaker.  Holding my attention for 7 hours is nearly impossible but he did.  I have learned a lot. His Powerpoint Slide Handouts are located here. Understanding Interpersonal Trauma in Children: Why We Need a Developmentally Appropriate Trauma Diagnosis is located here. Understanding Interpersonal Trauma in Children: What We've Learned Since the DSM-IV, and Why a Developmentally-Appropriate Trauma Diagnosis is Needed in Future DSMs is located here. Clinical Implications of Neuroscience Research in PTSD is located here. A paper on Developmental Trauma Disorder is located here. A Psychotherapy Network Article is located here. A Complexity of Adaption in Trauma handout is located here. I have taken notes and I will be putting them down here along with anything it brought up in me personally or based on my personal or limited professional experience. When doing assessment tests which involved having a picture of a family shown wo...

I have not figured out exactly how I am going to write about the ATTACh Conference yet.  It is quite overwhelming.  I think I will have this as the kind of index page and add links to this page.  I am also going to work on not using Reactive Attachment Disorder or RAD and instead work on switching to Developmental Trauma Disorder or DTD in order to help define and get a proper diagnosis for those who suffer from it. The 2012 ATTACh Conference is in Baltimore, MD from Wednesday, September 19, 2012 through Saturday, September 22, 2012.  I love going to the conference both as a parent and as a therapist. As a parent I love it because the "professionals" treat the parents with respect.  They know that the parents are in the trenches and they want to know how to help us and do research and treatments based on what can help us - which is not the model for most medical conferences where a bunch of patients praise researchers for trying to find the answers to their c...

"Congratulations, it's a girl!" announced a nurse 52 years ago today.  When the nurse asked the 15 year old girl what the name would be - she stumbled over her words and said she thought the baby was a boy and hadn't picked out a name.  She finally created a name based on someone the nurse knew and the doctor's name.  As that "baby girl" started to grow into a "little girl" she insisted she was a boy.  She ripped off her girl clothes and pretended to be her grandfather shaving.  She never felt comfortable in her body and as puberty started she became even more frustrated, depressed and upset that she didn't turn into a boy.  She grew up like a lot of kids - going to school and trying to fit in.  Home life sucked as often does when a teen mom tries to raise a child on her own.  At one point the girl, now a young lady comes out and says she is a lesbian.  She tried to fit in that way but still she was often taken to be a male just by look...

Yup THAT Day that every year I dread so much.  THAT day that the media talks about for at least a month in advance.  THAT day for not only what happened to us as a nation 11 years ago but THAT day for what happened to my family 8 years ago.  Today is THAT Day. I wrote this two years ago and updated last year and again for this year because a lot of it feels so much the same: "Time heals all wounds"  I am beginning to doubt that.  Maybe in decades or centuries but why are my feeling so raw.... So for the 2 to 3 months - I braced for it - thought about what the kids would need to do and how I could help them and here I am alone in my office - my son trying to handle school and my daughter in her out of state placement.  I just got off the phone with her therapist - she superficially cut herself - they therapist and I agree it was attention seeking behavior.  She has already shown her negative behaviors there and she has only been there since Thurs...

This is a guest post from our Parrot: A couple years ago we moved into this great house with single pane windows - Now I can chatter all day with my friends outside. I am constantly asked how I train my humans so well.  So as I sat in the long-nailed human's office watching her blog, I told her I wanted a guest spot - so she agreed (one you train them you can get them to do anything!) How to Train Your Human 1.  Get the human's attention:  Humans are not very observant, just being cute or doing a trick will not work until you get them to look at you.  I find that a loud call often will get their attention.  If they still do not look your way often pretending to be freaked out will really draw their attention. 2.   Remind and Repeat:   Sadly despite the size of a human's head they have small brains and even smaller memories.  One of our jobs is to remind these humans of the very basic things.  You will have to constantly repea...

This post comes from many different sources.  Just over 11 years ago I was working with a great therapist to help my daughter.  I had a love hate relationship with this therapist.  This is when I first learned that REAL therapy - the kind that you work on yourself and your deep problems - is uncomfortable, hard and sometimes even painful.  If you can journey through that with a mind at least partially open you will like the end result. My daughter came to us December of 2000.  She is a wild child and nothing like I had ever seen or experienced before.  Her therapist she was seeing at the time, just didn't seem to understand how serious the problems were because when we went into therapy with her, my daughter was sweet and caring and said and did all the right things.  The therapist must of thought we were crazy as we discussed the behaviors we saw at home and our daughter we look innocently up at us and say we were either lying or that she was so sor...